


Passing Afternoon

by Darcyshire



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, there will be a happy ending I promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 19:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10043537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darcyshire/pseuds/Darcyshire
Summary: “I feel like I’m living someone else’s life.”Cedric is cursed into oblivion during The Battle of Hogwarts after being taken hostage. He loses three years and all his memories of being happily in love with Harry Potter. Harry tries to pick up the pieces.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I WAS writing very happy, fluffy Hedric fic but then I heard the song "A Passing Afternoon" by Iron and Wine and came up with the idea of this fic. Some lyrics from the song do appear, so I'd like to state that I don't own them as well as none of the characters in this story. 
> 
> Not Beta'd so any mistakes belong to me, feel free to tell me whats wrong and I'll gladly fix it!

_There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon._

“I can’t do this anymore.”

Cedric stood in the kitchen doorway to number twelve, Grimmauld place with his bags at his feet. He wore his navy blue traveling coat and his faded house scarf bundled neatly at his throat. He looked sad.

“I feel like I’m living someone else’s life.”

“You’re living _your_ life.”

“No,” Cedric sighed, “This isn’t me, Harry. Not who I am now. I can’t remember who I used to be. I feel like I’m living in the shadow of a ghost and I can’t do that to you.”

“You just need more time.” Harry said, voice breaking on the word ‘time’.

“I’m not getting any better.”

“My memories! You just need more of those - ”

“Harry, your memories… don’t feel real to me.” They felt like a passing afternoon – almost dreamlike and fuzzy around the edges, but not real. Cedric had watched countless memories, but not one of them held one shred of familiarity. Not one of them made him feel impossibly warm or cause his heart to skip a beat in his chest. Most importantly, not one of them made him love Harry.

“So that’s it then?”

Harry’s voice trembled, with anger or hurt, it was unknown. He stood, arms crossed in a way that could be considered defensive, but it looked more like he was hugging himself, arms tight against his chest.

“You’re going to give up on us? On me?”

Yet, Harry knew he should have never asked. The answer was so clear in those beautiful, grey eyes he had fallen in love with. Yet, instead of holding their usual warmth, they were cold and unfamiliar.

“I can’t give up something I can’t remember, Harry.” Cedric said, sadly. Harry bristled, uncrossing his arms as his hands balled into fists.

“I never knew you to be selfish, Cedric.” Harry’s voice was thick with anger, green eyes flashing with hurt. “The Cedric I knew was kind and good and he didn’t run from a problem!”

“The Cedric you knew is gone!” Cedric almost shouted and Harry was taken aback by his tone. Cedric had never spoken to Harry like that. Not ever. Cedric knew he had made a mistake. He regretted what he said immediately and feebly tried to reach out to Harry to apologize but it was too late.

“Fine,” Harry said evenly, not meeting Cedric’s eyes. “Go on then.”

Harry never heard the door close.

 

.    .      .

 

_There are things that drift away like our endless numbered days._

Harry knew something was wrong from the moment Cedric opened his eyes.

Harry knew something was wrong when Cedric addressed him warily with a “What are you doing here Potter?” Everything about it was wrong. There was no warmth or familiarity to his tone, nor was there any form of love or happiness in seeing Harry again. Not to mention he had used Harry’s last name, which is something he hadn’t done since his fourth year.

“I’m here for you, Ced.” Harry said, reaching for his hand and clasping it tightly in his. “We thought you weren’t going to wake up.”

Cedric did not respond, electing to instead look at Harry like he had suddenly grown two heads.

“What in the hell are you talking about, Potter?” He said, snatching his hand back from Harry, who flinched as if he had slapped. “The cup was a portkey, remember?”

“What are you talking about, Cedric?”

Harry waved for a helper to get Cedric’s Healer. He wasn’t making any sense and seemed almost delirious. He placed the back of his hand against Cedric’s cheek and then his forehead, checking his temperature while Cedric squirmed away from his, vocalizing his confusion loudly.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking your temperature to make sure you don’t have a fever. You’re not making any sense here, Ced.”

“Stop calling me that. Only my dad calls me that.” Cedric snapped, pushing Harry’s hand away from his face, eyes narrowed.

“Cedric, what do you remember?” Harry asked, almost tentively.

“I remember entering the maze,” Cedric said slowly, looking at Harry as if he’d lost his mind. “I remember the graveyard and almost dying and seeing You Know Who come back. That’s it.”

Harry sat back in his chair, horrified realization dawning on his face. There was no way.

“You only remember the Triwizard tournament.”

“What else is there to remember?”

Cedric had lost three years.

 

. .  .

After Cedric had been diagnosed with amnesia, Harry spent the next three days at Cedric’s bed side, telling him about the last three years – most importantly, what he had been doing for the last three years. He told Cedric how he had won the Triwizard Tournament with him and left Hogwarts the next year with top N.E.W.T.s in his year. Cedric listened to him, enraptured, as he painted the story of his training and employment at St. Mungos as a Healer, eyes wide.

“Wait, so… You Know Who is gone?” Cedric asked once Harry got to the Battle of Hogwarts. It seemed almost impossible, as Cedric had seen him come back what felt yesterday. Harry nodded. “And…You killed him? After looking for…Horcruxes?” The word was clumsy on his tongue, as were many others. Apparently, being cursed into oblivion really messes with your syntax.

“Yes, about this time last week.” Harry said and Cedric laughed loudly, throwing his head back.

“You vanquished the Dark Lord and you’re being sarcastic? My my, Harry, you haven’t changed one bit have you?”

They sat there, quietly musing to themselves for a moment before Cedric broke the silence. “You never said what I was doing at the time. Wasn’t I in the Order? Didn’t I fight?”

Harry would not meet his eyes. He had been purposely avoiding telling Cedric what he had done for the last year because he still didn’t know the appropriate way to tell him he had gone into hiding after Harry disappeared because he was a prime target for Voldemort. There really is no way to delicately say _‘Hey, you didn’t fight because Voldemort would use our relationship to his advantage and also, by the way, we’re dating!’_

As far as Cedric’s mind went, he was still fresh off his sixth year at Hogwarts after quite literally competing for his life against Harry. Not only that, but his feelings for Harry didn’t start to surface until the middle of his seventh year – Harry didn’t even know if Cedric liked him as a person in his sixth year, let alone romantically.

“Well, you did fight in the Battle of Hogwarts. Quite brilliantly, actually.” Harry couldn’t help the praise. Cedric fought at Harry’s side from the moment he appeared in the Room of Requirement that night. They stayed together until Harry slipped away to the forest. He never said goodbye. He was too tired of the fight. Too tired of the death. He needed to die for the greater good and he knew Cedric would have never understood.

Things went wrong shortly after revival.

They had captured Cedric and he resisted valiantly; he was beaten and bloody, his robes torn and singed. Harry could hear from his vantage point in Hagrid’s arms as Cedric cried out with grief at the sight of Harry’s limp body. He listened as Voldemort laughed coldly. He listened as he heard Cedric scream with pain as he was tortured with the cruciatus curse, a shining example of what would happen if any of them were to resist the new regime – before death, obviously.

Then, several things had happened in a span of twenty seconds: Neville killed Nagini, Harry disappeared, and mass chaos erupted in the courtyard following his disappearance. As the battle commenced, Cedric managed to disarm the death eater holding him hostage with a well-aimed punch to the face, taking his wand by force. Yet, before he could follow Harry and the rest of the crowd into the Castle, four spells hit him at once.

The Death Eaters knew he was their last chance. If they had Cedric Diggory, they had Harry Potter.

Yet, it didn’t quite work out the way they had planned, as most plans surrounding Harry Potter’s immediate demise did not. Voldemort was still defeated; they had still lost.

The healers could not figure out the spells that hit Cedric, nor could they figure if his amnesia was to be temporary or permanent. Cedric was on a strict six potion regiment every four hours.

“You fought and…I died,” Harry said slowly. He had already told Cedric of his sacrifice and his reasoning but it didn’t stop Cedric from yelling as loudly as he could at him until a Healer arrived in a hurry to administer a calming draught, scolding Harry thoroughly for upsetting him. “The Death Eaters took you hostage soon after I died. When I came back…. They cursed you. I didn’t know until after Voldemort’s death. I am so sorry, Cedric.”

“You saved us all, Harry. What on Earth are you apologizing for?” Cedric said, waving Harry’s apology away as if he were vanishing a tea cozy. “Except, I still don’t understand one thing.”

“And what’s that?” Harry asked, carefully. He knew Cedric would connect the dots himself and that there was no way to avoid the subject of their relationship forever.

“Why did they take me hostage? I can’t have been that important. Sure, I was in the Order and fighting alongside you but I’d believe they’d take Granger or Weasely first. You were a team.”

“Well,” Harry said after a beat. “We… You and I… Are in a relationship. About two and half years now. You went in to hiding because you were a target and it wasn’t safe for to work anymore. People were disappearing left and right and we were afraid with me on the run they would undoubtedly come after you whether to kill you or use you as bait.”

The room was deathly silent after Harry stopped talking. Cedric lay back against his pillows, his pale, handsome face pulled into an expression of severe confusion. Harry could see his mind at work, the cogs turning beneath his golden curls as he tried to piece the puzzle together. It was one thing to find out you lost three years and all memory of fighting against the darkest wizard who had ever lived. It was another to find out that you had spent two years of said time period deeply in love with Harry Potter.

“So, you and me?” Cedric asked, cocking his head to the side slightly. He usually did that when he was confused and Harry found it endearing most times, but now he found it worrisome. “We’re together? Is this a joke?”

Harry clenched his teeth tightly, leaning back in his chair and away from Cedric as a wave of hurt slammed in to him and he gaped at Cedric, unable to believe how incredibly insensitive the boy was being.

“No, Ced. This is not a joke.”

“Sounds a lot like one.”

“Fuck you!” Harry spat, getting up out of his chair so fast it fell back, hands curled in to fists. “Our relationship is not a joke! I told you more than I’ve ever told anyone about what I went through. About dying. And you ask me if this is a _fucking joke!?_ ”

Cedric sat, gaping at him, hands clutching his bedsheets in utter surprise, taken aback by the raw emotion in Harry’s voice. Harry didn’t care about Cedric’s feelings at the moment or that Cedric’s memory was gone. Harry had expected Cedric to be confused, to not believe it at first - but to ask if it were a joke? It felt like Cedric was laughing at their relationship. 

“You almost died because of _me,_ Cedric. I thought I lost you the moment I saw you laying in that courtyard, unmoving and seeing that -” Harry’s voice broke as he recalled the moment he found Cedric, the relief he had felt quickly turning to icy horror as he ran to Cedric’s cold, limp body laying upon the stones, calling for somebody, anybody to help.

The sound of the door banging open and the telltale shuffle of feet of a Healer was enough to jolt Harry out of his memory, backing away as the Healer swatted at him angrily, looking as if he was about to tear Harry a new one for raising his voice at Cedric.

“I – I think I should go.”

Harry left without another word, not once looking at Cedric.

.   .   . 

_There are things we can’t recall, blind as Night that finds us all._

“I have more memories today.”

The great stone basin that sat beside Harry’s bed seemed almost full to bursting with memories, yet Harry still made room for more as he poured the silvery liquid from the crystal vile. Cedric sat beside him, looking doubtful as he watched the memories swirl together catching snippet of the two of them dancing in the room of requirement one rainy afternoon.

“What makes you think it will work this time?” Cedric asked dully.

“The Healers said you needed time.” Harry said. That had been his only response for the last two weeks since Cedric had been discharged from St. Mungos, armed with enough prescription potions to stock Hogwarts. They were still unsure if Cedric would ever regain his memories, as they still did not know what spells Cedric had been hit with. Everything was very uncertain.

So, Harry began to share his memories of the two of them. He had hoped it would at least seem vaguely familiar to Cedric, but day in and day out, Cedric still looked doubtful at the end of every session, frowning deeply, deep in thought. It almost seemed like he was trying to will himself to remember.

Harry had shared a plethora of memories with Cedric over the past two weeks, each different from the next. He shared heated arguments where they both left in a huff and he shared their hushed apologies and sweet kisses after said arguments. He shared warm days by the lake, laying on their backs and staring at the sky, imagining a world where there were no deaths or evil wizard uprisings. Imagining a world where they were happy and in love without a care in the world. Time stopped during those afternoons and all Harry could think about was how sweet Cedric smelled and the taste of his lips.

Harry also shared the worst of times: The battle at the Ministry where he had lost Sirius, the death of Dumbledore, and the heavy loses of the Battle of Hogwarts. On those days, Harry stopped early, leaving Cedric in favor of the kitchen where he could sit in front of the fire undisturbed. Reliving the memories was almost as hard as gaining them the first time.

After yet another icy dip down memory lane, Cedric reemerged frowning, almost looking defeated.

“More time, Ced. We’ll get there.” Harry assured, patting his shoulder lightly.

Yet, the hope Harry carried deep in his chest was faltering.

.   .  .

Cedric left not too soon after that afternoon and Harry felt his world come crashing down around him.

**Author's Note:**

> The next chapter should be up within the next few days, but if its taking too long feel free to come into my askbox and yell at me on tumblr @ Official-Enjolras.tumblr.com.


End file.
